Understanding how a language brings its features to life is always a good thing, which

will help you on many fronts. For one thing, coming up with a proper software design

requires a good insight into the “à la carte menu” of language features, so that you pick

the ones best suited for the job at hand and those that won’t leave you with a bitter aftertaste.

Also solid knowledge about the language and its caveats is invaluable while debugging

your (or someone else’s) code. Occasional historical perspectives interwoven

throughout this book highlight why the language looks the way it does today.